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Robert Smalls: From Slavery to Politics

This video from Slavery and the Making of America explores the life of Robert Smalls. From the middle to the late 19th century Smalls, a former slave, went from decorated solider in the Union Army to becoming a landowner and eventually a powerful politician during the period of Reconstruction.

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Born into slavery in 1839 in Beaufort, S.C., Robert Smalls would become one of the most influential African-American leaders throughout the Civil War, Reconstruction and beyond, despite the inequities he endured as a young man.

As a young boy, Smalls lived with his mother, Lydia, in a slave cabin behind the home of their owner, John McKee. When Smalls was a young man he was sent to Charleston, S.C., away from his family, and hired out as a slave to work on behalf of his owner. When he turned 18, he fought and gained the right to receive some of his hard-earned wages. In Charleston, Smalls held many jobs throughout the city but settled into working on the docks and eventually as a pilot on the steamship Planter.

As the Civil War raged, Robert Smalls was working as a helmsman on the Planter, then a Confederate military ship. Smalls saw the Planter as his ticket to freedom. One night, after careful deliberation, Smalls and a handful of other African-American slaves boarded the ship (after the white crew had left for the evening) and took control of it. Smalls sailed the ship up the South Carolina coast stopping briefly only to board Smalls’ family and the families of the other men. In the dark of the night, Robert Smalls and his crew piloted past a number of Confederate forts, most notably Fort Sumter, and ended their journey with a white flag raised in Union territory.

Robert Smalls and his crew became national heroes not only for their courageous journey from the Charleston Harbor, but also because they revealed strategic Confederate military information to the Union forces. As a reward for their heroism, Smalls and his crew were honored with Congressional prize money from President Lincoln. Smalls would meet with Lincoln again to propose a campaign to enlist African Americans to fight against the South in the Civil War. Lincoln agreed and Smalls set out to recruit African-American soldiers for the Union cause. Robert Smalls went on to fight in 17 battles for the Union throughout the Civil War.

After the war ended, Robert Smalls returned to Beaufort, S.C., as a freed man with his family and purchased the home of his former owner. He hired tutors to teach him to read and write and became a powerful voice in South Carolina politics. He was a U.S. Congressman for five terms and worked as the U.S. Collector of Customs in Beaufort, S.C. for more than 20 years.

Robert Smalls was among the new class of African American politicians that emerged after the Civil War. What do you think motivated Smalls to enter politics?

Why would South Carolina “become a major proving ground for Reconstruction?”

What political offices did Smalls hold? How was Smalls removed from office as a part of wide-ranging white efforts to reduce African American political power?

Robert Smalls remained in office longer than most of his contemporaries after the Compromise of 1877. What do you think the narrator means when he says “His leadership would give hope to his people in the years of uncertainty to come?”